Aphasia Therapy or The importance of being earnest

Abstract

Effectiveness of aphasia therapy, at least for some patients, is no longer under discussion but the specific effect of most of the variables influencing recovery is unknown. In this paper we address a question relative to the therapeutic regimen. Three pairs of patients with similar age, educational level, sex, aetiology, lesion site, and type and severity of aphasia are compared. Except for one of the control patients who was 2 months post-onset, all patients were at least 6 months post-onset (range: 6–22 months) and had already been rehabilitated when they entered the study. The three experimental subjects underwent a very long and intensive therapeutic programme (2/3 hours per day, 7 days per week, for many months), with the help of the family and volunteers. The control patients were rehabilitated daily (1 hour, 5 days a week) for similar periods of time. It is argued that the intensive treatment achieved higher test scores and more prolonged recovery and that the experimental patients made better use of their recovered language in daily life.